The inquest......so what went wrong?

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

There's only one John Fenty

Quoted from Fillipe Noche

We are talking about a relegation in one season here. Nothing whatsoever to do with past history in connection with John Fenty. The history is of no consequence of what has happened in one season.

The blame for this lays wholly at the door of Ian Holloway.

Holloway was:-

1. The man that championed building in Covid clauses into contracts last summer. Stood there on camera telling the world that other clubs were mad not to adopt Covid clauses. Which ultimately cost us key players who were not prepared to risk the implications of Covid clauses.

2. The man that then set about signing a huge squad of seriously inadequate players. Mostly on the recommendation of his so-called football friends.

3. The man who stood there on camera telling us that he refused to implement a series of pre-season friendlies, and only organised 1 local game at Clee Town. All because he feared Covid. Ironic that he then committed serious breaches of Covid protocols at the training ground, including the now infamous darts match. All of this refusal to get much needed practice matches, whilst other teams completed a serious pre-season fixture campaign.

4. The man that used Covid as an excuse at every rubbish result, whilst also trying to throw in bits of his embarrassingly poor Holloway comedy act, referencing pointless crap from his mum and dad to Donald Trump.

5. The man who then embarrassingly quit when the going got tough, citing the takeover as the reason, because he didn’t want our new owners.

6. The man who, on the day he left, told a member of his staff, that he got it seriously wrong and totally underestimated the level of league 2.

7. The man who let’s face it, was only hear because he thought he was going to make a lot of money out of subsequent developments based around the club, and quit once JF agreed to sell, meaning there was no longer any scope for him to make any money.

8. The man that everyone thought or hoped would be a great appointment, and would have made that same appointment. Who wouldn’t have given Holloway a whirl because he’s had some success at a higher level, and was very popular with a huge amount of football contacts.

When all is said and done, this club started this season in the hands of Holloway. We started it with no real indication that he would take us into a relegation battle.  No reason at all. Stable club with stable finances and a popular leader in Holloway. He played a massive part in the policies around Covid and championed them as a solid and sensible way forward. He was instrumental in it.

For me it is Holloway that is responsible for this mess this season, and for that, I shall never ever forgive him

Quoted from diehardmariner

Let's face it, this club has been on a downward trajectory since John Fenty got involved with the club.  

Yeah, we can argue ITV Digital hit us hard but it Rotherham, Barnsley, were at a similar level and standing to us around that point and they haven't fallen like we have.

But 2016 should have been our reset...so since then:

Failure to build on the momentum of 2016 - Two Wembley finals in the space of 8 days.   Even the uninteresting and hungover FA Trophy Final attracted 10,000 Town fans.  That's about 6,000 more than our average home gate that season who travelled down to London at great expense and inconvenience.  At the very minimum we had 6,000 new customers to go at.  Optimism was the highest it had been for years.  Crying out for a bit of promotion and engagement to add an extra 1,000 + season ticket sales into the summer coffers.    

Instead we were late getting our season tickets on sale, because the printers didn't know what league logo to put on the books....virtually no marketing work to attract new season ticket holders.  We ended up selling a similar season ticket figure to the previous season.  

For context, Lincoln had a waiting list for season tickets after their promotion from the Conference 12 months later.

Failing to invest in infrastructure post 2016 -   I can't have been the only one who was a bit embarrassed in the Conference when part-time teams rocked up to Blundell Park with more staff than would fit in the dugout.  Part-time players with GPS vests on, an analyst in the managers ear with an iPad informing him that the left back had spent the last 8 minutes in Zone 4 Heart Rate and he would need an energy gel in the next five minutes.  We, the supposed big fish in the little pond, had Paul Hurst with his A6 notebook making notes as Dave Moore lobbed bottles of Aldi Lucozade at the players, any science behind it?  Nope. Seen the Premier League clubs doing it though.  How many kilometres has Carl Magnay run today?  We've got three games in 8 days coming up, do we need to protect him now and do we factor this into his training?   Not a clue.  Let's just guess.

It was no surprise it took us so long to get out the Conference.  We weren't a sleeping giant in there, we were a dozing buffoon.  Someone living on former glories thinking we didn't need to adapt.  The one-eyed old bloke in the pub who has spent 45 years pissing his pants in the corner, but still convinced he's the hardest bloke in there because he won the Army Middleweight Boxing Belt in 1962.

We got out the Conference because Hurst had an eye for talent, he persuaded some good players to come here and he built a good spirit.  To top it off in that final season we had a goal machine in Amond, someone backing him up in Bogle and then to finish it off we had Jon Nolan who at the retrospective level was one of the best players we've had in terms of how much better he was than everyone else.  We went up in spite of the fact we had the infrastructure of Brigg Town.  

Hurst quite rightly wanted to move us into the modern age, hell moving into 2003 would have been progress.  He wanted a sports scientists, he wanted an analyst, he wanted a proper strength and conditioning coach.    He knew he wouldn't get it all.  But he deserved better than an extra flipping portakabin.  Promotion back to the league and we got a big shed to store the nets and cones.  

We went from looking out dated in a league with part-time clubs to looking bloody ancient in League Two.


Failure to build on the team in 2016 - I still maintain that at the time, that side wasn't good enough to push the club on in 2016.  It fell over the line in the end. Tait and Nolan were never going to stay.  One wanted to go back to Scotland, the other went to League One.  Toto was another but he wasn't go to stay for whatever reason....but the point is those 3 were going regardless.  Be it we stayed in the Conference or got promoted, they weren't going to be here.  You can't do anything about that.

Then the rest are largely players who haven't really gone onto prove that point wrong.  Craig Clay has had a decent career dipping between the Conference and League Two.  But it's hardly kicking on and going to the next level which we wanted.  Nathan Arnold, who I loved here, didn't prove himself at League Two.  Jon-Paul Pittman, fell back into the Conference.

There's nothing there to suggest that those players would have led us through League Two like a lot of teams have done since winning promotion from the Conference.  This wasn't a Bristol Rovers or a Tranmere side, this was a side that needed strengthening big time.

But we didn't.  Somehow we managed to downgrade on those players.  Ashley Chambers for Arnold. James Berrett for Clay. Shaun bloody Tuton for Pittman.
With the exception of Danny Andrew coming in, we weakened ourselves.  How much of that is down to Hurst and how much of that is down to the budget I'll let you figure out yourself.  I think Hurst got his recruitment wrong that summer but I also think he was hampered by a tight budget.  Three of his summer signings that year came from a club relegated out the league (Chambers, Berrett and Luke Summerfield).

Then of course there was the Amond factor.  The player himself has come out in the last six months to basically say the fault was with Fenty and not Hurst on this one.  No-one in their right mind would let a guy who not only scored just shy of 40-goals for you, but also led your front line superbly, just walk away....then there's John Fenty.

The Bignot Debacle - Hurst left and in hindsight, who can blame him?  But football moves on and Fenty went out to appoint Marcus Bignot.  Again, we now know that it was based on how impressed he was with him during the Bogle transfer.  Which is fair enough, we all get those initial feelings about people and Fenty is clearly no different than us.  Do you appoint a football manager on the back of it? Probably not.  But it's ok, because you do a bit of due diligence, right?  Nope.  

Bignot came in with a remit to build something, build a legacy.  He was told he had time to do it.  At this point I was quite happy with this.  You could see the work he had done at Solihull and he clearly liked a project.  He seemed quite modern with his approach and initially got a tune out the players.  But the step-up was huge.  He quite clearly needed a little bit of help and an older head to just guide him through those 12 months.  Bignot clearly had an ego on him and rather than reaching out for that mentor, he brought his mates in to help him.  It's almost a parallel, you surround yourself with Yes Men and you're never doing wrong.  

Having refused to give Hurst any infrastructure, Bignot got what he wanted.  We had unleashed a greedy kid into the sweet shop.  Striker?  Yeah, have another one mate.  We've got that Bogle money.  Spend it as you see fit.  Build a big squad.

At this point we just lost control.  Bignot signed some good players...but we let them travel from Birmingham on a daily basis.  That was never going to work.  If it was a loan signing at the end of the season or a Garry Birtles type figure who can be trusted to train on his own for 3 days a week then fine, but these were lads in their mid 20's.    Should Bignot have allowed that? Absolutely not.  Should Fenty have stepped in?  Most certainly.  He didn't want to step in then because he was happy having his ego stroked.  We'd had a bit of footballing fortune with the Bogle sale and he was too smug bragging about the depth of our squad to everyone who would listen.

Eventually when he came round to realising that a 45 man squad was too much, especially with a lot of high earners and a dressing room split because half the team lived miles and miles away, he acted.  He hung out Bignot to dry for the two things he backed him on: 1) Building a big squad and 2) rebuilding something.

The knee jerk reaction - Having wasted the Bogle money, Fenty realised that we needed to cut the cloth accordingly.  I mean, benign loans aren't going to get repaid if you've got an expensive team are they?  So in came his old mate Russell Slade.  

I listened to the Paul Bolland podcast last week and was interesting to hear him say how Slade built such a good spirit in the dressing room in his first spell.  I liked Slade in that spell.  So his second spell was really disappointing.  More so because he failed to recognise the value of the dressing room.  Already fragmented, he made the cardinal sin of breaking the heart of it up.  

Craig Disley was coming to the end of his career, he wasn't the player he was and it was the right time.  But his loss in the dressing room was going to be absolutely huge.  A big void to fill.  Fortunately we still had a few stalwarts left from 12 months before who would ensure that the spirit remained.  But Slade got rid.  He got rid of the leader of the dressing room in Shaun Pearson.  Now, you can argue all you want about Pearson's ability at this level and fair enough he has been in the Conference ever since.  But as a leader of the dressing room, we've not yet replaced him in my eyes.  Slade claimed it was a matter of circumstance and that he just had too many defenders on the books.   He then went onto sign Nathan Clarke and Karleigh Osborne (remember him?  I don't blame you if you dont').   Clarke was a disaster.  Osborne was largely injured but poor and sluggish when he played.

Further penny pinching ensued.  Sam Jones is a player who history will say wasted his potential.  But Slade didn't really do much to get it out of him. High earner...off you go.  It's ok though, Slade had already brought in the prolific JJ Hooper so we were all good!

The football was turgid.  Results were dire and the anger built up towards Fenty.   Protests started to happen with the main one in the car park before the Cambridge game.  Would Fenty fall on his sword?  Nah, he just threw his mate onto it instead.  Slade was a disaster but to say he was doing anything but acting on Fenty's mandate would be simply daft.  

Around this time Fenty also thought it would be a good idea to mysteriously get in the back of someone's car who was recording him.  Because I often just get in the back of a car with a stranger and start spilling secrets left, right and centre....Within this he insulted former and current players as well as former managers.  Classy.

Oh and then of course there was the 'You lost trust, Matt' sabotage.  The fans forum where Fenty and his acolytes blindsided a local journalist and Town fan for doing his job.  Because Matt Dean had the audacity to report on Curtis Woodhouse joining in the training set-up....a report that was later proven to be accurate I believe, just that the club backtracked on it.  

Fenty was so arrogant that he didn't think the bloody camera in front of him would catch him winking to his cronies at the point they ambushed Dean.  It was also the same forum where Marley told fans to 'shut up'.  

Classy, again.


Jolley

In hindsight.  Jolley's tenure was arguably the most uneventful period since coming back into the league.  I don't care how it went afterwards.  The guy performed a bloody miracle in 2018 to keep us up, especially with that team.   There were fleeting moments where I felt he would build something special here and I think he actually wanted to.  

All said it didn't work out.  Again penny pinching at play, he got frustrated and we as fans grew tired of his negative style.  No complaints when he was sacked.  Mystery over who recorded the rant that actually no-one, even the guy who it was aimed at, really cared that much about.  Everyone just put it down to a hissy fit which we're all prone too.  



Holloway - Hands up.  I got drawn in.  I wasn't particularly keen on his appointment as I've always felt he was a rent-a-quote type.  But he got the area buzzing, he worked his audience well and I came away from that Fans Forum last January thinking we were going to win the Champions League within 6 years.  He brought in better players than we had and we ended the curtailed season looking half decent.  We weren't quite there for a play-off push but definitely a lot of hope for this season.

Yet then it all went wrong...

A dogshit budget.  
Not activating a clause in the contract of your most valuable asset at the time.
Not having a budget to keep your better players (Clarke, Hessenthaler...)
Telling young players to get a second job rather than get a payrise.
Having such a dogshit budget that you're signing the dregs that no-one else will want.
Insisting on a Covid-clause that no-one else has done so players turn you down.
Thinking you would get away with one pre-season game.
Building your team on raw loanees and lads from well down the pyramid.

Players who no-one was particularly disappointed to see go would have walked into this team.  Akheem Rose, Harry Davis, Harry Cardwell....that's how poor our recruitment was last summer.

Some of this is Holloway, some of this is Fenty.  Between them someone should have realised that everything they were cutting back on would have an impact.

Added to it all the absolute farce over Anthony Limbrick.  A really good, respected and liked coach.  As caretaker manager his work was quite clear to see.  Post-Jolley we were a shambles, it became clear that there was no direction and no guidance.  Results weren't great under Limbrick but game by game you could see the improvements and the structure he was giving us.  Without that foundation, Holloway wouldn't have been able kick on in January and February like he did.  What we were left with in the coaching set-up was a very raw and inexperienced Ben Davies and Holloway (who by all accounts did nothing on the training ground anyway).  

Also under Holloway we had the Covid situation.  Dunno if he mentioned it but it affected the club more than anyone else.  To the point that we were affected so badly we didn't have to adhere to the rules of it.  Did our failure to socially distance players really have an impact on our league position, probably not....but it just gives a taste of the shoddy way the club is run.

Tyre-kickers and Alex May

Bubbling away in the background for the last two years was Fenty's arrogant belief that no-one else could run this football club.  Anyone who legitimately expressed an interest was labelled a tyre-kicker.  No real substance behind it other than Fenty didn't want to sell.

A year ago it was stated that any prospective new owners would need to find funds to run the club should it fall upon hard-times.  As if by magic, a few months later the club does fall on hard times and rather than backing up his own set-standard, Fenty gets the begging bowl out and tells fans to cough up even more.  

He then continues an attempted character assassination on legitimate businessmen with a background that makes his look laughable to say the least.   This wasn't even embarrassing, it was shameful.  You've got guys who are involved in big corporations on a day-to-day basis and then you've got the guy who climbs a floodlight to save a few quid saying they're not the real deal.  

When one of the party pulled out of the consortium, which had no impact at all on the outcome of the deal, he couldn't wait to put the boot in.  

So happy to put the boot in on things like that, yet he's still not apologised for trying to bring in a convicted conman into the fold of the club.  He still thinks he's done nothing wrong and got his teaboy to go on the radio telling everyone that May's crimes were victimless.

Further example of class.

Hurst

I feel for the guy.  He had a poisoned chalice and he hasn't turned it round.  He's made us competitive again and in some respects gave us a side we could be proud of.  But it was a step too far.  Last night we were done for.  We looked exhausted and flat.  To say we were down to the bare bones doesn't even cut it.  

But ultimately he took too long to make us solid and the main failing is that he took a punt on one playing scoring the goals to fire us to safety in Stefan Payne.  He was the one bit of quality we needed and he left us (and Hurst down).  Doesn't matter how you look at it, that money could and should have been spent better elsewhere.  Had it been so, I think we might be looking at the table in a very different light today.

I don't blame him for our relegation but ultimately football is a results business and under Hurst we haven't got enough points on the board.


So since 2016 there's a constant theme running through our spell back in the Football League.  Many errors along the way, no lessons that we've learned and lots of examples of bad management.  I'll leave it down to you to decide what the common denominator in all of this is....

Quoted Text

Added to it all the absolute farce over Anthony Limbrick.  A really good, respected and liked coach.  As caretaker manager, his work was quite clear to see.  Post-Jolley we were a shambles, it became clear that there was no direction and no guidance.  Results weren't great under Limbrick but game by game you could see the improvements and the structure he was giving us.  Without that foundation, Holloway wouldn't have been able kick on in January and February like he did.  What we were left with in the coaching set-up was a very raw and inexperienced Ben Davies and Holloway (who by all accounts did nothing on the training ground anyway).  

Quoted from Limerick Mariner

An important point in a really good post by DHM. In the Scunny game which we lost, unluckily, 1-0 we played pretty well and there were green shoots showing, Holloway came in, added some players and a couple of good loanees and we looked a decent side making progress. The Holloway name probably helped get the quality in that we did in Jan 20. I just wonder how this season might have been if AL had been working with even a weakened squad in a proper close-season prep - maybe that is the really key bit of penny-pinching that has helped bring about this disaster - and was it anything to do with IH?